diff --git a/Documentation/config-gerrit.txt b/Documentation/config-gerrit.txt
index 5284d8989c..ec55b570ef 100644
--- a/Documentation/config-gerrit.txt
+++ b/Documentation/config-gerrit.txt
@@ -1716,11 +1716,14 @@ Defaults to the number of available CPUs according to the Java runtime.
 
 [[receive.timeout]]receive.timeout::
 +
-Overall timeout on the time taken to process the change data in received packs.
-Only includes the time processing Gerrit changes and updating references, not
-the time to index the pack.
+Overall timeout on the time taken to process the change data in
+received packs. Only includes the time processing Gerrit changes
+and updating references, not the time to index the pack. Values can
+be specified using standard time unit abbreviations ('ms', 'sec',
+'min', etc.).
 +
-Default is 120 seconds.
+Default is 2 minutes. If no unit is specified, millisconds
+is assumed.
 
 
 [[repository]]Section repository
diff --git a/gerrit-server/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/server/git/AsyncReceiveCommits.java b/gerrit-server/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/server/git/AsyncReceiveCommits.java
index b78f15aae4..c2fe1a2033 100644
--- a/gerrit-server/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/server/git/AsyncReceiveCommits.java
+++ b/gerrit-server/src/main/java/com/google/gerrit/server/git/AsyncReceiveCommits.java
@@ -73,8 +73,8 @@ public class AsyncReceiveCommits implements PreReceiveHook {
     long getTimeoutMillis(@GerritServerConfig final Config cfg) {
       return ConfigUtil.getTimeUnit(
           cfg, "receive", null, "timeout",
-          TimeUnit.SECONDS.convert(2, TimeUnit.MINUTES),
-          TimeUnit.SECONDS);
+          TimeUnit.MINUTES.toMillis(2),
+          TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
     }
   }